Karen Lillis

Karen is an artist and a writer of novels and poetry. She is the founder of Words Like Kudzu Press and of the small-​press import service, Lillis Distribution/​Pittsburgh. Originally from Virginia, she lived in New York City for over a decade and worked at the literary haven, St. Mark’s Bookshop, for many of those years. She called Pittsburgh home as of December 2005.

Ten or 15 years ago, a story about Pittsburgh’s “independent” bookstores wouldn’t have made much sense. “When we opened in 1990, there was just the Borders in South Hills,” says Richard Goldman, co-​owner of Mystery Lovers’ Bookshop.

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